Essentials – Samady

December 10, 2018December 10, 2018

UNIT 2 & 3: CHEMISTRY

[pictures coming soon]

I really like this round chemistry class because the topics are really cool to learn about and the worksheet that we have to complete are very interesting. My favourite part of the class is when we learn about lewis structure. I always wanted to understand what those bond, letter, and dots mean. Now I am able to look at a compound element and write a lewis structure. I can even identify whether it’s non-polar or polar and the name of the bond. I also think it’s pretty fascinating to be able to name the covalent bonds because their names are very long and technical. For the last 2 weeks of class, we got introduced to the limiting reactant and excess reactant. This is also my favourite topic because I learn how to balance the chemical equation and how to calculate limiting reactant. To find the limiting reactant, it is actually taking a lot of steps and calculations of the molecules. That’s what make it so fun for me because it require a lot of concentration and I just really like the way the compounds are written. I hope to learn more about chemistry and although it might be complicated to understand, I think I will try my best to learn and help my classmates.

October 19, 2018

Math Round 1 – Preparing for SAT

I really love math but I was never really good at it. When seeing math equations, it look so cool to me but I couldn’t figure out on what is the first step I should take to solve the problem. I then become stuck but then it becomes very fun for me because I can try to find a different way to solve the problem but then it become stressful when I still couldn’t figure out a way to solve it.

In math class, we’d been using Khan Academy and College Board which are the educational platforms to help us prepare for the SAT on October 6th. I try to practice math at least 30 minutes every night, but sometimes I couldn’t do it, however I get to practice math during math class which is a great thing. When class started, our teacher usually go over math areas that students has questions on and explain us how to solve the problem. Sometimes I just admire how intelligent our math teacher is. Not only he is super funny, he is super smart, and always encourage us to keep trying harder. There was a time he did a timed-math-calculator-okay section on Practice SAT with us. Every question he did, he would explain us what the question mean and go over step-by-step on how to solve the problem. It was a timed-practice-test but he still took that time to make sure that we understand what he is doing. At the end of the practice test, one question was not answered, and one was incorrect — it is not because he didn’t know how to do it, it was just that he ran out of time because he was busy explaining us how to solve the questions. I was so impressed, how can he do that! Well what should I say, he is our math teacher.

SAT is coming up. I am trying to practice as much as possible but I don’t think I work hard enough. I am worried about the test because I know myself that I don’t practice enough on the math section of the SAT. I still have many more areas that I have to work on, to learn, and to understand how to solve that type of question. My goal for the math section is to reach 600 points, I accomplished that before but I do not think I will be able to do it this time. I hope I do okay with the upcoming real SAT.

Good luck, Samady.

October 19, 2018October 19, 2018

Chemistry: Flame Test Lab + Round 1

Starting with the new school year, we got a new teacher to teach us about chemistry! I really love chemistry because it is very interesting to study how the chemicals works! In the first round of the class, we covered 2 mains units called the “Scientific Method” and the “Matter, Atoms, and the Periodic Table” topics. In each unit, there were many sub-topics that we have to learned about such as Emission, Atom, Mole, Electron Figuration, and many more! We got to do a lab called Flame Test. This lab was fun because we got to do an experiment with flame and flame is always interesting in chemistry. In the lab, we make sure that everyone wear safety glasses, gloves, sneakers, and their lab code. During the flame test, we want to see the changes in flame’s colour when we put the different type of Chlorides onto it. When we put the copper chloride onto the flame, it changed the flame’s colour from orange to green and blue and it was so beautiful. The flame was kind of spiky. After the experiment, we measured the wavelength of light of each flame’s colour using the colour wavelength table. There were error during experiment such as that we do not accurately identify the flame’s colour using our eyes. But from this lab, we learned that the higher the energy level, the higher its wavelength of light.